Tamara Cofman Wittes is Director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Middle East Policy. Dr. Wittes served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs from November of 2009 to January 2012. She also oversaw the Middle East Partnership Initiative and served as deputy special coordinator for Middle East transitions. Before joining the State Department, Dr. Wittes was a senior fellow in the Saban Center at Brookings, where she directed the Middle East Democracy and Development (MEDD) Project. She has also served as Middle East specialist at the U.S. Institute of Peace and taught courses in international relations and security studies at Georgetown University. Dr. Wittes is the author of Freedom’s Unsteady March: America’s Role in Building Arab Democracy (2008) and editor of How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace Process (2005). She was one of the first recipients of the Rabin-Peres Peace Award, established by President Bill Clinton in 1997. She holds a B.A. in Judaic and Near Eastern studies from Oberlin College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in government from Georgetown University.